QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (14:01): I'm glad to get a question on the economy. We haven't had one from the opposition for a while, so I am very pleased to get one. It's interesting to get a question from the party that, when they went to the last election, were going to increase the taxes on every single one of the 14 million employees and workers in this country and who went to the election with bigger deficits, higher taxes and bigger debt because they were going to borrow billions of dollars to raise electricity prices through the delivery of nuclear power stations.

I also note the inflation challenge that we inherited from those opposite. Opposition senators interjecting— Senator GALLAGHER: I know you don't like the facts when it comes to the economic record, but, when we came to government, inflation was running at 6.1 per cent. It peaked in the December quarter of that year.

We had massive deficits for the foreseeable future. What we have done is repair the budget, get rid of the waste, return the upside from the revenue that we've received to budget repair, and significantly lower inflation, working hand in hand with the Reserve Bank to ensure that we got inflation back into band. We have seen inflation tick up in the results that we've seen for the September quarter.

I know those opposite were obsessed with trimmed mean inflation. Underlying inflation has now been between two per cent and three per cent for three consecutive quarters. It is higher than we'd like, but it's about half of what we inherited from those opposite.

(Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator Paterson, first supplementary?